Budget cuts tour state parks

Monday

Mar 31, 2008 at 12:01 AM

COLUMBIA - Fourth-grade teacher Beverly Gair only gets to take her students on one all-day field trip each year. So she takes them on a three-hour ride each way from their school in Reedley to Columbia, a state park where they can dress in 1850s clothes and get a firsthand look at the Gold Rush history that launched California into statehood.

Dana M. Nichols

COLUMBIA - Fourth-grade teacher Beverly Gair only gets to take her students on one all-day field trip each year. So she takes them on a three-hour ride each way from their school in Reedley to Columbia, a state park where they can dress in 1850s clothes and get a firsthand look at the Gold Rush history that launched California into statehood.

"They always learn so much," Gair said as her students passed water-filled buckets like those used to fight fires in Columbia a century and a half ago.

The lesson in the coming year may be quite different. Ordered by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to propose how they could cut 10 percent from their budget, California State Parks officials have come up with a list that includes fewer cleanings of bathrooms, less maintenance on historic buildings and fewer park staffers such as Lynn Kemp, the park aide who led Thursday's tour at Columbia.

The cuts aren't final yet, but if they become part of the state budget due for approval this summer, they would likely mean fewer nature hikes and less frequent junior ranger programs at Calaveras Big Trees State Park, less money to buy the historical materials such as sugar pine shakes needed to maintain buildings at Columbia, and even the closure of Railtown 1897 State Historic Park in Jamestown.

Although Jamestown doesn't draw as many visitors as Columbia - 70,000 versus somewhere around 400,000 each year, according to park officials - Tuolumne County tourism leaders are worried.

Many of those who come to Railtown are Hollywood film crews. The park's working steam engines have been featured in hundreds of movies, including "The Virginian" and "Back to the Future III."

"The economic impact to that is just phenomenal," said Nanci Sikes, executive director of the Tuolumne County Visitors Bureau. "That is the one thing we have that the film industry can't find anywhere else."

Sikes said her organization estimates that closing Railtown could eliminate about $15 million in annual tourism revenue, or about 10 percent of all the tourism dollars spent in the county.

By comparison, the money the state will save by closing Railtown is trivial, said Kathy Daigle, associate director of the California State Railroad Museum Foundation.

"We believe it will only save $300,000 a year to the state if it is closed and put into caretaker status," Daigle said.

Sikes said Tuolumne residents are waging a letter-writing campaign, and virtually every schoolchild in the county has sent a postcard featuring an image of Railtown to the governor.

State park managers, meanwhile, say they are trying to do their part to help balance the budget, even though they don't like cutting programs such as campfires and natural education.

Vince Sereno is sector superintendent for six parks, including Indian Grinding Rock, Calaveras Big Trees and Columbia (but not Railtown). He said he would have to carve $190,000 out of his $1.9 million annual budget, and he'll make it up largely by not hiring seasonal employees who typically work in the summer, when families show up eager for campfires and children's programs.

"If our volunteers step up, you won't see paid staff out there, but you will see volunteers covering some of those programs," Sereno said.

The private nonprofit park association at Calaveras Big Trees pays for two seasonal employees, meaning there will continue to be a few extra people to lead hikes and campfires during the busy season there. "But I don't have that at every park," Sereno said.

Sereno also manages two parks with water recreation - Turlock Lake and Bethany Reservoir. While they will see the same reductions in maintenance and bathroom cleanings as the Lode parks, they will at least be spared one of the cuts likely to hit hard on Southern California beaches: the elimination of lifeguards.

That's because those parks don't have lifeguards now.

"We would like to have them there, but we don't have the money to begin with," Sereno said.